NOT Expensive Glass Whiteboard

Materials: TORSBY + RIBBA + 1/2″ Mirror HardwareDescription: I wanted to outfit my home office with a Glass Whiteboard. After shopping around I was astounded at the cost of these… easily starts off at $500-$700 and goes up from there. Amazing!

Then, walking around Ikea, looking at the TORSBY dining room table on display (it had a white glass top), I realized it was the perfect size. Next, I saw the table was actually priced as two separate items.

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Jules Yap "I am Jules, the engine behind IKEAHackers and the one who keeps this site up and running. My mission is to capture all the wonderful, inspiring, clever hacks and ideas for our much loved IKEA items".

92 Responses to NOT Expensive Glass Whiteboard

If you are planning to use this in an office with track lighting, the board looks terrible. The lighting in your space absolutely needs to be diffused else you get multiple shadows behind everything you write. To me, a photographer, it all looks like a photo from a defective lens.

Clever, chic, practical, inexpensive, not complicated to install = Great hack. Impressed with the glass, but the picture shelf gives the project a substantial and finished look. Question: Especially after dark, are you bothered by the reflection of light sources in the room?

Because tempered glass will shatter into crumbs when it’s hit. Regular glass will shatter into incredibly dangerous shards that can cut or kill you if you’re falling against them. Putting up a sheet of non-tempered glass in a situation where it’s fairly easy to fall against it is a really bad idea.

Hey Guys, i just completed this hack. I had to modify this a bit so here are my learnings:
- Mirror hangers / Mirror lips are not readily available for this hack everywhere. Home Depot in markham locations didn’t have the right size. I ended getting the Hillman Brand, Metal Mirror Clip for 5/16 inch mirror (1/2 inch).
- need to account for the screws, sticking out and interfering with the glass once mounted. Make sure you get flat head dry wall screws.
- Lastly the wall I mounted this to did not have wood studs but metal studs. Metal studs are crap. I used drywall screw / nylon toggles – Cobra brand (at rona). I didn’t use the screws that come with them because the heads are too fat…

Thanks for the tip! I bought the Tosby top and came back to this page looking for mirror lip specs. Home Depot and Lowe’s here didn’t have it either. I think you saved me some time with the flathead drywall screws too!

I loved this idea – just made a HUGE glass whiteboard using two 70″ Torsby tabletops horizontally mounted on top of each other. Almost 36 sq ft of glass whiteboard. Hung just fine with four 3/8″ mirror clips (2 bottom, 2 top), into studs with 2.5″ screws.

Love this idea. Looking for a really big glassboard for my home office and professional ones are between $300-$600. Ran down to my local Maryland IKEA, picked up just the tabletop, and hung it with the picture hanger underneath. Works well. Little bit of “drop shadow” is no problem. Erases much easier than the whiteboard I have on the adjacent wall. All in all, great idea!

Hello. Did you end up buying the KLUDD, Noticeboard, glass. I need one in my bed room to take notes while studying. I am thinking between this glass one or go to a non glass white board. Your advice would be much appreciated

Also, I definitely want to back-light this baby… thinking I would spray-paint the whole table-top white on the back, then mount it a rectangular wooden frame to the wall, 1/2 inch thick, and use the void to insert some LED strip lights. Do you guyss think that would work?

This looks very neat. I am worried about mounting such a thing on the drywall. If we used anchors, can this be done safely without mounting on the studs (I’ve had trouble finding the studs in the past).

In the event you visit the IKEA link for any table, click on the Product Info tab, scroll down to the actual Package measurement as well as weight section and click on the link that states, “Show size, weight load, as well as post numbers” you can obtain the number of each and every piece of a product. Take the correct quantity and put it in the Lookup standard. You might will have the price as well as stock connected with only the piece you want.

Appreciate that individuals have got totally skipped the purpose and are recommending white board color! The particular OP did not really want the lowest priced white board feasible, he desired an inexpensive GLASS white board which accompanied his design and elegance! Which is definitely an IKEA crack website, therefore white board artwork does not actually suit you perfectly. I believe it is a great concept. Stylish and a great cost.

In the event you visit the IKEA link for any table, click on the Product Info tab, scroll down to the actual Package measurement as well as weight section and click on the link that states, “Show size, weight load, as well as post numbers” you can obtain the number of each and every piece of a product. Take the correct quantity and put it in the Lookup standard. You might will have the price as well as stock connected with only the piece you want.

EVEN IF he paid full price, $199 in canada, for the whole damn table and only used the glass top, it looks AMAZING! if he can afford it why should anyone care? honestly, whiteboard paint is cheap and looks like it. give him a break. this isn’t the “how to get the cheapest possible home decor” site is it? why do people crawl out of the woodwork with nasty comments just because someone spends what they can afford to get the look they want? lighten up! good grief!

Love that people have completely missed the point and are suggesting whiteboard paint! The OP didn’t want the cheapest whiteboard possible, he wanted a cheap GLASS whiteboard that complemented his decor and style! And this is an IKEA hack site, so whiteboard painting doesn’t really fit the bill. I think this is a brilliant idea. Stylish and a good price.

If you go to the IKEA link for the table, click on the Product Information tab, scroll down to the Package measurement and weight section and then click on the link that says, “Show dimensions, weights, and article numbers” you can get the number of each and every piece of a product. Take the correct number and put it in the Search bar. You will now have the price and stock of only the piece you want.

I think this is beautiful! I really dislike my commercial whiteboard because of the ghost images and can’t afford a true glass one but I never considered this. Thanks for sharing – it looks really high end! You’ve made me think of how best to replace my awful one.

I had a hard time finding 1/2″ hardware as well. I finally just bought some 1/4″ hardware and it seemed to work. I really like the look of this as most whiteboards have a really cheap plastic border. We have whiteboard paint at our office, but it seems to discolor pretty quickly so I prefer this.

I have a question about using 1/2″ hardware. I just bought the table top and the thickness is actually .30 inches. As such, it doesn’t seem that it will sit in 1/2″ hardware very securely. It appears like there will be too much play and room for movement. How did you address this? Thanks!

Since so many people are having trouble finding the proper mounting hardware, I would like to suggest making your own from two strips of 5/4″ (actual 1″) T x 2″ W x (whatever the entire length of your whiteboard is) L, ripping a 1/2″ deep kerf down the entire length, then mounting that on the wall, into the studs, top and bottom. The glass will be solidly sandwiched in-between.

Instead of LEDs, you could paint the back w/ UV-sensitive paint (it is white paint but you can get different “reacting” colors) and then throw up a black light. My understanding is that with this process you would get a more even spread to the glow than with LEDs, and I think it might be cheaper. (This is assuming the glass stood away from the wall — but maybe you could edgelight this somehow?) I saw this done on Color Splash (HGTV) with frosted plexiglass for a bar. Great hack!

No, it has the white coating on one side (the back, similar to the coating of a mirror). similar to frosted glass as well. the coating is normally applied to just one side, so that the other is just the normal glass.

Also, if the white “frosting” on the backside lets too much light from the leds through, so they show up as discrete points, instead of an even band of illumination around the edge, all you’d have to do would be to spray paint the back black. Yep, right over the white. it’ll still look white from the front, but will not allow light through.

ps; Drilling tempered glass is a really BAD idea. My understanding is you need to de-temper the glass first, then re-temper after drilling. probably ought to google it…

yes, you could… I’ve used the whiteboard paint from Lowe’s in other projects. works pretty good. however, it does stain over time and wear out, plus needs repainting over time, regardless of what their packaging says. And, the design is key in complementing the rest of the office.

We have seen small, expensive, glass white boards (brightly coloured back painted glass) and we thought, we should be able to do that and but I never thought of starting with something from IKEA. Thanks for the idea. Possibly BILLSTA Glass desk top $19.00 would work…

I too had problems finding the tabletop as an individual item on their web site. So I just went to the store and was able to purchase there w/o any issues.

The other thing I was originally looking to do was purchase some Stand Off mounting hardware which would hold the glass about an inch off the wall. But that hardware was turning out to be very expensive (~$200 for a set of 4). The alternative was the mirror mounting hardware from the local hardware store for $6.

I wish I would have thought about putting something magnetic on the back. That would have been a great idea.

no luck finding it as an individual item on their web site. I ended up having to go into the store. I was able to purchase it there without any issue. you’ll just want to check online to verify stock levels first.

I’m sure that if you called Ikea customer service, you could purchase the table top as an individual item.

There are way more things you’ll never find separately on the ikea website…

But that’s a great idea, and at a good price. I’ve been looking for the same thing. Those things tend to be stupidly expensive indeed. To bad I already put 2 of those ikea Kludd glass boards on the wall

I hope I didn’t come off as a hater, I was pointing out that IkeaHackers is a place for people who love Ikea to hack their things. I might or might not do (or appreciate) a particular hack myself, but to object because it’s cheaper to do it at the orange cube is completely beside the entire point!

Tileboard is ok for a cheap whiteboard, but it is slightly permeable and WILL discolor over time and start looking dingy no matter what you use to clean it.

Glass is impermeable and will not discolor. As for buying glass at the hardware store – I don’t think you’ll have much luck buying that big a piece of tempered glass for under $80 and you’d be a fool to make a whiteboard out of non-tempered glass.

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